2 in 4 days, yeeeeah

Bet you didn't expect to see two posts in four days. Well here it is...

Ever since I decided to commit my "career" to ministry I have learned I did more than that. Ron, Chandy and I have all come to the realization that you can't really commit your career to ministry. It's kinda like being, "100%, completely, without a doubt, no question about it, ALMOST sure". I also realize that we aren't the first missionaries to ever experience what we have experienced. I hope I'm not too ignorant that I think I'm the first person whom God has used in this way.

Basically what we realized is that we can't commit our lives to ministry, specifically inner-city ministry, and expect that once we "clock our hours" or put in our 9-5 (which all too often turns into a 9-11, yeah, check my math but I'm pretty sure that after some long division and after you multiply by the numerator that is a 14 hour day) we can be done with work. Ministry is our life. It should be for any and every person who claims to be a Christian, but once you decide to do as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 9:14, you can pretty much guarantee that you are in ministry mode 24/7.

Every person, Christian or not, has run-ins and experiences with homeless men and women on the corner at the stoplight, the guy at the gas station who needs some gas for his car down the street, the family outside the window when you are eating lunch downtown, along with a handful of other scenarios. It's a part of life. Not like this it's not. Several times over the past few months the three of us have had conversations about how so many individuals approach us for help, outside of work. But just recently have I really processed in my mind why this is happening. What's happening is that God is taking my commitment seriously, maybe even more seriously then I had originally intended (in a good way).

Was I really expecting to be a inner-city missionary 40 some odd hours a week and then be an off-duty, inner-city missionary the remaining hours of the week? Whether or not I intended that to happen, it's not. People approach me in the most un-thinkable situations. At McDonalds with 15 kids and happymeals a man approaches me. Body shaking, hands trembling as he holds out the dollar or so that he has collected to this point, his voice not so confident, "Could I get like forty or fifty cents." After some conversation and him declining the offer of a meal and drink from McDonalds it was clear that his intentions were not to go across the street to buy some food, as he had told me. Regardless of his intentions, whether or not he needed food or a few ounces of alcohol, he picked me out of a crowd. Why? Why would he confront me? Of all the people in McDonalds, why did he peak through the window, point at me and motion for me to meet him at the door? Because that's what I told God I was open, willing and available to do.

I'm not writing this blog in hopes that people will think, "Man, Luke, Ron and Chandy must be so cool with God. God is sending people to them because He wants them to help them out. They must be so in tone with God." Don't get me wrong, I like to think that I'm cool with God, but by no means do I feel like any of the three of us are any more special then anyone else that would simply make their lives available to God's will. That is all it is. It has all to do with you making yourself available to be used by God. I say all of this simply to say that any and every person can be used by God. Regardless of one's history, past experiences or current life situations you can be used by God. Problem is, alot of times when we pray/tell God that we want him to use us or create situations where we can be used to minister to others, we avoid them. What if all this time you have been praying that God would use you in great ways to change the world, when really all He wants you to do is change the world of that individual on the corner? What if instead of asking God to put you in the lives of some one person or some group of people to minister the love of God to, He really just needs you to minister to the people that you "know best", your family.

Really this blog turned into alot more then I intended. I planned on telling about another way that my job has alot more to offer then I ever expected. Welp, sorry, at least I blogged twice in four days right?